Thursday, August 24, 2006

Lyric theatres

It's been a long time since poetry and music were considered natural live stage bedfellows. Where John Cooper Clarke and Seething Wells were leading at the end of the 70s, opening for any punks or post-punks that would have them, nobody really followed and now even the most cauterised of poets seem marginalised to cabaret tents and the idea of a crossover seemed to have been buried when Raphaelite haired Murray Lachlan Young was being touted as the Poetry Is The New Rock'n'Roll leader for as long as he didn't read any of his work.

Which is why we were intrigued to find out about Phrased & Confused, a project designed to get people thinking about words in both contexts, and in particular their October tour bringing together uncompromisingly dark Irish poet Brendan Cleary, beats aided duo Sore Throat, left-leaning Bragg-compared storyteller Chris T-T and, most excitingly, the Delgados' Emma Pollock on her first solo tour. The tour starts at the London Luminaire and continues into Colchester, Norwich, Leicester, Brighton and Kendal.